Minister of Education Sergei Uvarov invited the Leipzig-educated Stefani to head the department of classical philology at Dorpat University in 1846. Trained in Greek epigraphy, Stefani moved to St. Petersburg four years later, to the Hermitage, where he studied artefacts sent from the Black Sea littoral. His methodology of not interpreting beyond what was in his hand influenced his students to be scrupulous and careful about what claims they could make.
Where Associated: Dorpat University
Nikitskii was yet another priest’s son who received his education in the seminary, but was sent to St. Petersburg to train for a career as a teacher. His talents at Greek would have been wasted at a gymnasium, and he became a respected scholar of Greek epigraphy. He also taught at the St. Petersburg Women’s Pedagogical Institute. At the Odessa Congress, he argued that Novgorod had already opened a Window on the West via trade through the Neva, so Muscovite conquest was detrimental.
A graduate of St. Vladimir University in 1886, Pavlutskii had studied classical philology under Ia. A. Kulakovskii, and then continued his education in Berlin and Paris. One of the most influential scholars of religious architecture, he focused on the reciprical influences of Greek, Byzantine, Italian, and Russian churches, especially the latter around Kiev. Keeping art in archeology, he influenced a generation of young scholars.